“So, Mrs. Cohen, we spoke on the phone about why Baruch is coming in today, but Baruch, why don’t you tell me why you think you are here?” “I’m bad at school,” Baruch said, barely glancing in my direction.“ Do you mean that you don’t get the grades you would like?” “No, I’m just not good at school. My teachers don’t like me, my tests are horrible, and my friends think I’m dumb.”

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” – Wayne Gretzky, Hall of Fame Hockey Player “I can’t seem to focus.” “For as long as I can remember, I have been struggling with organization.” “I’m really bad at sitting still.” “I just can’t lose weight.” “I will never make it to the dinner on […]

Recently a popular Jewish weekly magazine featured a story depicting the life of a young boy whose parents were divorced. Each parent had re-married, establishing new families. Their shared custody of this son, and he spent substantial time with each of his parent's new families. Giving a voice to the child of divorce was the intention of the story. It highlighted the distress children feel as well as the confusing messages they often receive from the adults in their lives.

In his best selling book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business, Charles Duhigg argues that most of the choices we make may feel like products of well-considered decision making. In reality, they are not.

In the 1950’s, bestselling author Rudolf Flesch offered to give a friend’s son, who was a struggling reader, some help with reading. He soon discovered that the problem did not lie in the boy’s intelligence, but rather in the way that reading was taught to him in school. To set out his reading principles, Flesch wrote a now famous book entitled, Why Johnny Can’t Read – and What You Can Do About It. In it, Flesch outlined the basic approach of phonics, an effective and important manner of teaching reading.

Avital walked into the test feeling great. She had studied the night before and she was sure to ace her grammar test. But, suddenly, when her teacher passed out the test paper, Avital found her palms sweating and her heart racing.

Dear Dr. Yael:
My seven-year-old daughter is having a very difficult time socially in school. Another girl is making fun of her, and I do not know how to fix the problem. Because she wants to be friends with this girl (although I am not sure why), she puts herself in situations where she is the target of the girl’s ridicule.

Meet Noam, a ninth grader I worked with several years ago. Noam came to my office because he was struggling with his biology curriculum. Though Noam was extremely smart, he had ADHD, which made it hard for him to focus on all of the material presented during class. Before we even looked at the material together, I asked Noam how he learned best. His face was blank as he responded, “Um, Mrs. Schonfeld, I really am not sure.”

When an opportunity for a fresh start is handed to us, when that new door opens, it is often viewed as a gift from Hashem. In most cases in order to completely realize it, we must fully embrace it. For people transitioning into marriage the second time around this is often the reality they face: a new opportunity seldom comes without a price, without us having to, in some way, compromise the life we were accustomed to. Seamlessly blending “pre re-marriage” life with “post re-marriage, new blended family” life is difficult at best and often times takes many years to sort its’ way out.

Conversations in my head always there but never to be said,
Can't escape my childish dreams, my fantasies, the unreal realities,
Talking to myself again no one seems to be around,
I hide myself inside myself, never thinking I'll be found…
-Jamie Sue Reinhart

Allan is a very troubled nineteen-year-old who has been coming to see me since August. Actually, I’m never sure if Allan will make it to the next appointment. Since we first met, I have been amazed at the amount of emotional turmoil and pain he is in. Every appointment seems to bring another “cry” for help. His anguish is noted by his constant crying and threats of harm to himself and others.

In a recent New York Times article, Robert Lipsyte, a sports author, posed the following question: “Boys and Reading: Is There Any Hope?” For years, I have been dealing with this question in my office. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education’s reading tests for the last thirty years show boys scoring worse than girls in every age group, every year.

It still amazes me how the Internet has completely changed our lives and how we view communication these days. My children hardly believe me when I tell them that there was a time when being in touch with someone, meant we actually saw them, spoke to them on the phone, or wrote them a letter and mailed it.

He recognized me before I recognized him. We were in Yerushalayim on different sides of the street. He was six foot two waving and yelling my name. “Noach, Noach, Noach Schwartz, the social worker! It’s me Yechiel Klein! Don’t you remember me?” He was wearing a hat, white shirt and suit and looked like a regular bochur from the Mir or Brisk. He did not look like the Yechiel I had met ten years earlier at a clinic in Boro Park.

Dear Dr. Yael:
I am married and have a two and a half year old son. He is a wonderful child, but when he does not get his way, he often has a tantrum. Sometimes, I just give him what he wants because we are in public and his behavior is embarrassing. But I cannot always give in, especially when what he wants is dangerous or unhealthy. It is then that I do not know what to do.

I have often been talking about parenting the “explosive child” or a child who struggles with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). In that context, I often mention Dr. Ross Greene’s groundbreaking work on using “Plan B.” However, recently, another approach has been gaining popularity. It is from Daniel J. Siegel, MD and is often used to promote “the whole-brain child.”

I watched them tear a building down; A gang of men in a busy town. With a mighty heave and a lusty yell, They swung a boom and a side wall fell. I said to the foreman, “Are these men skilled As the men you’d hire if you had to build?” He gave me a […]